


Fight or Flight

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst just for the sake of angst, Fluff, I'd rather not make anyone uncomfortable, Kinda, Love, M/M, Panic Attack, Plot Twist, Sherlock dies, Slash, god I suck at tags, graphic description of blood, i guess, john worshipping sherlock, not really that graphic but I mean, really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 19:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8765242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Calloused fingers made their way through messy, untamable black curls, trying to cherish the few instants where they slid freely through the locks without inevitably getting caught in some huge tangles at the end of every single strand.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I LIVE for comments. Of every sort. I just really really need to know what people think, so I would immensely appreciate them.

Calloused fingers made their way through messy, untamable black curls, trying to cherish the few instants where they slid freely through the locks without inevitably getting caught in some huge tangles at the end of every single strand. He accidentally brushed the warm forehead with the palm of his hand and retreated it with a jerk, hurriedly moving back to the raven hair.  
The weight of the man's head cradled in his lap was pleasant and familiar, the hair so thick, filling his hands so nicely, he would never have wanted to take them away from it. With the other hand, he sought for Sherlock's fingers. He found them, gently slipping his own between them, gripping a surprisingly warm hand. He started playing with it, pinching delicately every fingertip and moving to the palm, massaging it lightly with his thumb in circular motions.  
He slowly walked it up his arm to his wrist with a small, jumping-pressing rhythm, but as soon as he reached it he flinched and ripped his hand away, landing it delicately on his face.   
The back of his fingers traced delicately the plump outline of the man's lips with reverence, brushing the lower lip almost with awe as he caressed it sweetly. Sherlock's face was smeared with dark and viscous dirt, but his features were still astonishing even under all of that. John followed the line of his right cheekbone, cleaning it with his fingertip, and walked his fingers playfully until he reached the point where his eyebrows met his silly nose. He let his finger slide on the bridge of it until he reached the top and squeezed it affectionately.   
One, two, three droplets trickled from above and cleaned the dirt by the corner of Sherlock's left eye.  
John caught them and reached the arch of the brow once again, and started a slow, peaceful circular movement on the perimeter of his forehead, round and round and round, a swirl composed by infinite concentric circles until, when he was about to reach the center of it, his fingertip brushed again a lump, a swollen piece of marred flesh. He pressed the tip of his finger over the small, dark, throbbing hole left by a bullet wound, pointlessly trying to get the blood to stop flowing, to stop it from disfiguring the marvelous face of the man he loved. His hand raised, now soaked in turbid blood, trembled in the air, under the weight of what he had just witnessed, then reached to cup at the hole with a spasm that could only be seen as an invocation for mercy.  
His hand rested on the cooling forehead, trying to press on it but shaking too much to manage. He inhaled a couple of shaky breaths, gulping down mouthfuls of air, and kept his teeth gritted because if he didn't, he would have been howling pityingly with terror and sheer pain. He kept shaking his head and huffing spastically with his nose, eyes squeezing shut out of his control, continuously squeezing tears out before they even had a chance to create, the simplest physical way to block out a huge trauma and he was aware of that just as much as he was of the fact that he couldn't help it.   
He was holding Sherlock's head in his lap without getting covered in exploded gore because the bullet didn't trespass it, of course it didn't, not a thick skull like his, and now it was planted in the middle of that wonderful brain, spreading death to every swirl and curl of it, and John could not bear that the most luminous mind was vanishing, slipping between his very fingers and he couldn't do anything to detain it, no matter how frantically he clutched at Sherlock's blood-soaked raven hair.  
John couldn't find a reason, couldn't find the strength, couldn't find an explanation and his gaze was roaming everywhere but he couldn't feel himself seeing or processing anything. His head feeling fuzzy, being split in half by the resounding, obscene ring of the bullet severing itself from the gun and the cartridge hitting the ground. He felt like he did too many times to be proud of admitting it, he felt swallowed by the least chivalrous response to fear of the two. As a soldier, one would think that the fight response would be not just morally adequate, but natural, intrinsic. And yet he was paralyzed, frozen in place by a cold shower that melted his limbs into the cement he was kneeling on, breathing too consciously to be doing it naturally, and the sheer, immobilizing realization that he did not have half of an idea of what he was going to do next. He needed to run as far as humanly possible, and at the same time he never wanted to let go of that man, of that moment, of that chapter of his life, of that haunting vision that was reducing him to utter crumbles.  
He felt a panic attack bubbling its way up his spine, up his entire body, creepy and unsettling and inevitable.   
He buried his nose into Sherlock's dark, viscous curls, pretended they didn't smell like disgustingly fresh blood, and breathed.


End file.
